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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27926875">Memory in Twenty Sketches</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken'>thedevilchicken</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Frankenstein Chronicles (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Body Horror, Christmas, Dubious Consent, Getting Back Together, Getting Together, House Party, Injury Recovery, M/M, Memory Loss, Napoleonic Wars, Pre-Canon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 20:55:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>13,597</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27926875</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There are twenty sketches on the table in John's room. He resembles only a couple. </p><p>Now, he understands why. And he knows exactly where they came from.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Daniel Hervey/John Marlott</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Heart Attack Exchange 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Memory in Twenty Sketches</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/psychomachia/gifts">psychomachia</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This fic assumes: </p><p>1) John Marlott is, as the show states, a veteran of the 95th Rifles and fought during the Napoleonic Wars</p><p>2) Daniel Hervey is an earl, which is the only way I can make sense of Jemima being referred to as "Lady Jemima Hervey" (her father holding any rank below earl would make her "The Honourable Jemima Hervey"/"Miss Hervey" instead)</p><p>3) John doesn't retain all his original body parts at the end of season one (which is where the Body Horror tag comes in, if briefly!)</p><p>And: this is an AU where John and Daniel meet seventeen years before the show's first episode!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There are twenty sketches all spread out across the table in John's room. </p><p>He knows his name is John because that's what he's been told. The man who visits him there has told him: his name is John, and in time his memory will return to him. Sometimes, he looks like he believes it. Sometimes, he just looks like that's what he wants to believe. </p><p>There are twenty sketches spread out on the table, because the man who visits put them there, out of a faded old manila folder that's turned soft from wear around its edge. And John looks at them. He runs his fingers over them, like the pencil marks against his fingers might spark some kind of memory. He's tried to fit the pieces of himself against them, too, but so few of them match - his hands with their thick scars from the stitches marching round each wrist are similar but not the same. There's no puckered wound like a musket ball embedded in his thigh. It's only the face that looks the same at all, and even that looks almost like another man completely. </p><p>"That was you, John," his visitor says, as he rests his cheek against John's bare shoulder. He's warm, and he tries to be comforting, and when he sometimes joins him in his bed at night, John doesn't mind. He likes the way his hands feel, though most of the time he can't make his own hands move with fine control enough to touch him in return. He'd like to, he thinks, and if the fact that he remembers nothing is the most frustrating thing about his life now, then the fitful, lurching way his body moves comes in at a close second. </p><p>He looks at the sketches and the man says, "I drew you, John. Do you remember?"</p><p>And it's been months, he thinks. He's been in this room for months and he can't leave and he can barely even voice a single word. </p><p>It's been months and nothing has made sense to him. </p><p>Nothing, that is, until now. </p><p>---</p><p>It was snowing when they arrived at Everly Chase. </p><p>It had been snowing steadily for almost two full days by then, since the morning they'd left London on the long drive north. The courtyard outside the hospital's main doors was slick with ice like the frozen duck pond John had skated on in the winters when he'd been a boy, which was hardly ideal for two men who were walking with sticks and another who'd lost one arm at the elbow to a volley of French guns. John counted himself lucky that he was one of the two with a stick and he had both arms still intact; Captain Gough, Robert, seemed cheerful enough and maintained that he'd be back with his regiment in Spain within a month, but John knew he'd been saying that for the past four months at least. A fortnight of which he'd heard in person, and he had to admit Gough's optimism had seemed ever more frayed around the edges. </p><p>It was snowing when they arrived and John's leg was aching from the cold. It ached anyway, frankly, which made sense since he'd been shot in it and had had to endure a shitty battlefield sawbones digging the rifle ball out of his thigh right then and there, using only a pair of bent forceps. He'd cleaned them first, though, which was more than they could say for their other companion's injury; Will, Captain William Fitzjames, had been near death from fever for several weeks after his injury, on account of dirty tools and a shard of French cartridge that had stubbornly resisted removal from his calf. His condition had then quickly improved, however, and now he was capable of limping the grounds with the hospital's best. That was where he'd met John: they'd run into each other in a not terribly literal sense in the cold hospital gardens, Will's stick newly broken in a fit of frustrated pique, and once John had helped him back inside (though it had been more of a shared struggle than straightforward assistance), they'd become fast friends. </p><p>Everly Chase was Will's family's home and, through the snow at sunset, it looked like something out of a picturesque painting his uncle had had on his living room wall. Technically, Will said, <i>Everly Chase</i> referred to the old hunting grounds that had been an acknowledged part of the local landscape since long before the Fitzjames family had swanned into the county and built their hall there, but it was also the name of the house now. John counted three rows of windows above the ground level, not including the two taller towers that stood one at the extreme of either wing, and the fields on the way up to the door were perfectly blanketed in white. It was a far cry from the battlefields of the Peninsula, John thought wryly, as the family carriage that had met their coach up from London made its way up the freshly shoveled driveway. It would have taken his lads in the Rifles a full day to do that work, he thought, as he peered from the window at the banks of cleared snow built up to either side of the long drive. It probably said something about Will's family that they had the manpower of fifteen properly motivated Chosen Men. </p><p>When they drew to a stop at the front steps, a footman appeared who'd apparently been detailed to help them, but Will waved him off and hobbled down out of the carriage and into the snow by himself. Gough followed and then John brought up the rear and the three misfit soldiers of His Majesty's army made their way inside. Will and Gough were wearing their regimental red coats and John was in his Rifleman greens, looking the tattier of the three but given their disparity in financial situations that really only made sense; Gough's father had made a fortune in shipping and Will was the younger son of Carmichael Fitzjames, Earl of Everly. John, on the other hand, had very little to his name but his rifle and his commission, the latter of which his uncle had purchased with the surprise winnings of a lucky night at cards. Sometimes John wondered what might have become of him if Uncle Charlie hadn't been stuck in Worksop that night on his way home from Kent, but it likely wouldn't have been pretty. </p><p>"Why did I let you talk me into this?" John muttered as they made their way up the salted steps toward the doors, which were being held open by a pair of liveried footmen. </p><p>Will laughed out loud. "Because the nurses weren't falling for your dubious charms and you magnanimously agreed to let me demonstrate that the aristocracy isn't entirely composed of pricks," he replied. "Don't worry, John, the footmen aren't for our benefit. Father's likely expecting more exalted company than ours for dinner." </p><p>John winced, but he followed Will and Gough inside. He didn't say he hadn't been trying to charm the nurses - in a hospital wing entirely reserved for commissioned officers they'd aim higher than the son of a long-dead seamstress, even if he had a dirty smile and a sparkle to his eye that said he'd know what he was doing. He definitely didn't say it would take more than the congenial nature of an earl's younger son to change his general opinion of their class, given how the other nine out of ten officers reacted to him, and that was without being invited into their country house. He didn't want to be there, but he'd promised that he'd go along.</p><p>It was still snowing as they went inside, huge flakes clinging to John's face and to his green uniform. He'd been sent home to convalesce after his injury, but his home wasn't in England; his men were in Spain and so he should have been, too. And besides which, he hadn't gone back to Yorkshire in the past sixteen years. He'd had no desire to.</p><p>He'd almost rather have been shot again than spend Christmas at Everly Chase, and it was still only the nineteenth of the month. But given his rifle was in Spain with his sergeant, he supposed he'd have to make do as best he could.</p><p>---</p><p>An hour after they arrived, he met Daniel Hervey. </p><p>It turned out Will was right: the Earl was expecting company that wasn't them. Will's elder brother arrived with his wife and a rather aged admiral who wanted nothing more than to talk his way through dinner, and that suited John who wanted nothing more than to stay out of conversation. He came downstairs dressed for dinner in his second best uniform, just like Will and Gough were, and the Admiral was already in full sail; they took only a moment from his grand tale to introduce the attendees for dinner to one another. </p><p>"My cousins," Will told John and Gough, as they waited by the door to go through to dinner. "Daniel, Lord Hervey, and his sister Jemima." Polite bows ensued and then Lord Hervey, a dark-haired man with rather intense eyes who might have been somewhere in his early twenties, introduced them to a friend who'd joined them from medical school - a well-dressed and well-spoken gentleman by the name of Thomas DeWitt. </p><p>"They're training to be surgeons, you see," Will said, as the Admiral started up again and kept most of the others occupied. </p><p>"Some of us prefer to put men back together rather than take them apart, cousin," Lord Hervey said, and Will laughed, but John didn't feel Will's amusement. Lord Hervey seemed to mean what he'd said. </p><p>Dinner was pleasant enough; the food was good and the Admiral was loud enough to engage the whole table, and John found himself seated between Lady Everly, Will's sister-in-law, and Lady Jemima, Lord Hervey's younger sister. The former asked a few polite questions about the state of the war and the part John played in it, which he didn't mind answering in just as superficial a manner as she'd intended her enquiries, while the latter asked about his injury in a way that said she might have read a few of her brother's books on medicine. It was Lord Hervey, though, seated opposite across the table, who seemed most interested in his answers; while he made chit-chat with the Admiral's rather youthful wife, he glanced at John every now and then in a way that said he was listening more intently to his dinner-inappropriate remarks on battlefield surgery than to the Admiral's wife's treatise on the latest London fashions. John couldn't blame him; he had a soldier's grim stomach for blood and guts but no head for hemlines. </p><p>Lord Hervey's glances were unsettling, perhaps, but not disapproving; he seemed intrigued, almost, and so John told Lady Jemima all she wished to hear about medicine as practiced in the Peninsula. Will gave him a look every now and then that asked what in blazes he thought he was doing, but in such an amused way that John didn't feel compelled to stop, and all other attention at the table seemed to drain into the Admiral and his stories of days gone by as seen through distinctly rose-tinted glasses. It was a strange affair, though John had to concede that he'd had many worse. His battalion commander tended to host much more uncomfortable dinners, frankly, and with much greater regularity. Here, at least, so far no one seemed to mind that his accent didn't match their own, though perhaps that was because he'd been born roughly thirty miles away from their front door.</p><p>The gentlemen retired to the billiard room after dinner and, for some time, John found himself the captive audience of Admiral Avery while Will cast him apologetic glances but continued his game nonetheless. It was Lord Hervey who saved him; he swooped in to introduce his friend, whose uncle had evidently served with him in his last command, and John bowed and begged off to go find himself a drink with absolutely no intention of stumbling back into the conversation. </p><p>"Thank you, My Lord," he told Hervey, quite sincerely, as he watched him pour them both a glass of brandy from the decanters across the room. He left the particular kindness for which he was thanking him unspecified, though neither of them seemed confused on that point.</p><p>Hervey's mouth didn't smile even half as much as his eyes did as he turned to pass John a glass. He had the faintly ink-stained fingers of an academic man, John thought, while his own looked like he'd spent the best part of his life shovelling dirt to erect stockades in far-flung places or else burning himself with rifle powder. He had, he supposed. He'd always far preferred to be the kind of officer who mucked in with his men when the work was hard, which he further supposed was half the issue other officers took with him. The other half was, of course, the fact that he was a man of no name from nowhere in particular. </p><p>"You're very welcome, Captain," Hervey replied. "I've had the pleasure of meeting the Admiral on numerous occasions." Then he gave him an extremely knowing look that very nearly made John laugh and strode away to join in conversation with his uncle, the Earl. </p><p>"Do they Herveys come here often?" he asked Will, at the billiard table, while Gough took his turn with the cue. </p><p>Will followed his gaze across the room to Lord Hervey, standing very straight but incongruously easily beside Will's father. </p><p>"Daniel and Jemima?" Will said. "Oh, they're not guests as such. They've lived here since their parents died, some dreadful accident when they were young though I have to admit I forget the details." Like the gentleman he sometimes very much wasn't, which was likely why they got along so well, Will stole John's glass and took a sip. "He's an earl in his own right, you know. Not quite so well off these days, father made some poor investments by all accounts, but very noble and all that, I'm sure. Sometimes I think my father likes him a good deal more than he likes me." Will raised his eyebrows faux-pointedly. "Please don't tell me that our dear Jemima has claimed another heart so soon."</p><p>John made the kind of face that said he wasn't sure how he was meant to respond to that remark and Will just gave him a clap on the back to assure him he was joking. Then he passed back John's brandy to take back the cue. </p><p>Gough won at billiards. The Admiral retired for the night quite early on, which seemed quite merciful to all concerned, and the Earl followed not long after, then Will's elder brother, until those left in the room were the three military men and the two surgeons-in-training. They played a couple of hands of cards, betting low, though John had to make his excuses rather sooner than the others on account of his damnably light purse. And then, they each made their way up the stairs to their respective beds. </p><p>John would much rather have been back with his men in Spain, crawling into a tent with a tin cup of whisky to send him off to sleep and his rifle by his side, than rubbing his aching leg under the blankets of a bed so soft he felt he might sink into the mattress never to be seen again. He could think of surprisingly few people who might miss him, maudlin as the thought was. </p><p>And all he could think as he slowly drifted off was that Will was wrong: he hadn't taken some immediate head-over-heels tumble for Lady Jemima. As pretty and engaging as she was, she was perhaps fifteen years old where John was nearing thirty-five and besides which, he knew better than to set his cap at the daughter of an earl at any age. </p><p>He had no interest in Jemima Hervey, at least not beyond a pleasant conversation. Her brother, on the other hand, intrigued him. </p><p>---</p><p>Breakfast was served so early that half the party failed to rise for it. The Earl - a rather grand man of some sixty years or more - took his time over a cup of tea that said he'd had a little too much to drink the previous night and John made polite conversation with the Admiral's wife, who seemed to know a great deal about the state of the war in Spain - perhaps more than John did, at present, given his several weeks away from it. Gough looked the worse for wear and Will didn't show his face. And, as John sat rubbing his aching thigh and sipping coffee that didn't make him long for the army, Lord Hervey made his quiet entrance. He nodded acknowledgement to John, then set about serving himself a cup of coffee, too. </p><p>The day was more leisurely than John might have liked. He wandered the house, leaning on his cane as he did so; he found Jemima reading in the library and they spoke for a few minutes as they watched the snow from the window seat, then he moved on. He found Will in his bedroom having a good-natured argument with his valet about whether or not he could wear his uniform two days in a row while back in England, and when Will used John as an example - as he was definitely wearing his Rifleman greens - he had to admit he had nothing else to wear. They spent the best part of the hour that followed playing fancy dress like a London boutique until half of Will's wardrobe was strewn about the room and John had several borrowed outfits to cart back to his room, which were passable if you didn't look too closely at the fit. </p><p>John had to admit he hated the notion of living by another man's charity. He always had; he'd never wanted his uncle to purchase his commission in the first place, though he'd come to be somewhat grateful for it, and his friend's loan of fine clothes made him uneasy though he supposed he couldn't wear the same three green uniforms day in and day out until the Christmas season was done with and they returned to London. He could send for some clothes, he thought, but he hadn't the money, so he wandered the house in search of Gough and found him listening to Will's sister-in-law at the pianoforte. A little coaxing and they shuffled out quietly into the hall. </p><p>It was an awkward conversation. He'd lent Gough some money back in the hospital, not an inconsiderable sum, something about the man being unable to access his accounts that had seemed like nonsense at the time but John had to admit he'd felt sorry for him. He asked if he might return the loan, or some of it, and Gough took a stricken look on his face that said more clearly than any words could that John would never see a penny of it back again. He didn't suppose he'd been swindled, not really, and he'd always known he should never lend out any sum he couldn't live without, but no power on Earth could have kept the scowl from John's face when Gough suggested he touch Will for a few pounds as he apparently already had. Then Gough smiled a half-apologetic smile and slipped away. John let him go; further complaints were hardly likely to turn good intentions into shillings, </p><p>"Captain Marlott." </p><p>John turned. In the doorway to the drawing room behind him he found Lord Hervey leaning against the frame, who then came closer. </p><p>"Lord Hervey," he replied. "Apologies. I didn't see you there." </p><p>Hervey gave him a small, wry smile and tucked his hands behind his back. "That's the way of these grand old houses," he said. "The walls have ears and you never know who's watching." </p><p>He stepped a fraction closer still, almost uncomfortably so, though the proximity quickly became understandable. </p><p>"I hope you'll forgive me for addressing this, Captain," he said, "but I couldn't help but overhear your conversation." </p><p>"My conversation?" </p><p>"With Captain Gough. About your...<i>arrangement</i>." </p><p>John made a face. Hervey's face twisted similarly; apparently the damned upper classes really did find it crass to speak of money, though it was never far from any of them's mind. </p><p>"I wondered if I might be of service in that area," Hervey said. </p><p>"My Lord, I couldn't accept--"</p><p>"Not a loan, you understand," Hervey cut in. He set one hand rather familiarly on John's shoulder. "I wish to employ you. As you know, I'm a student of surgery; that means I am also a student of anatomy. I make a number of anatomical sketches to further my understanding." He stepped back. He gestured the full length of John's body with one outstretched hand. </p><p>"You want to draw me?" John asked. "For your studies?"</p><p>Hervey smiled brightly. "Just so," he replied, evidently delighted that he hadn't had to spell it out himself and John had caught on to his meaning. </p><p>It wasn't the strangest offer John had ever had. He'd been paid to sit for two paintings back in Portugal and to take a colonel's bored daughter to a ball, and once or twice when he'd been particularly down on his luck he'd accepted two and six to convince a pretty girl that her fiancé beat him in a fight. He wanted to ask how much he'd pay, but the question seemed ill-mannered. And he'd have liked to have said no, or at least he'd have liked to have liked to; as it was, the way Daniel Hervey looked at him like a man worth his attention, John didn't have it in him to reject the offer. </p><p>"So, what do you say?" Hervey asked. </p><p>"When shall we begin?" John replied. </p><p>Hervey clapped him on the shoulder. A broad smile spread across his face. "Tonight," he said. "After dinner. I have a study in the west tower. You can find me there." </p><p>John inclined his head to say that he both agreed and understood, and when Hervey made a curt half-bow then walked away again, John watched him go while the pretty chime of the piano continued. He wasn't entirely sure what he'd just got himself into, but he couldn't quite manage to regret it. </p><p>---</p><p>The west tower was the oldest part of the house. </p><p>John found that out on a late afternoon tour of the property with Will and Gough, who latter of whom had the damned cheek to be cheerful after their earlier conversation. They meandered around the house and through the snowy gardens, leaning against sticks and occasionally each other like the walking wounded John supposed they technically were, and Will told them both about the history of the place as if any of them - him included - found his family's history interesting. He was still firmly in the throes of his hangover, though, so John had to admire his commitment. </p><p>It was a huge estate, as it turned out; John's original opinion of Everly Chase as a sprawling concern hadn't been inaccurate at all. They had seemingly endless snowy fields set over rolling hills with farms, an orchard, a large frozen millpond. They walked as far as the stile at the end of the rather seasonally barren rose garden, peered out over the fields as they tried to warm their hands, and then turned back. By the time they returned to the warmth of the house, John's thigh felt almost like he'd still got the shot lodged inside it, and the sun was already hanging low. </p><p>John wore Will's clothes to dinner but if anyone noticed, it remained politely out of conversation. The Admiral and his wife had already moved on - apparently they'd only ever intended to stay one night on their way into Northumbria to spend the Christmas with relatives and while some might have breathed a sigh of relief, the void in conversation left by the venerable man's absence entailed a great deal more engagement with the table at large than John felt himself equipped for. Will's elder brother vehemently opposed the war with France, though he seemed entirely incapable of explaining why that was, and John bit his tongue while the two brothers argued. Then the elder Fitzjames asked him what he thought and all that he could think to say was, "I'm a soldier, My Lord. What I do is follow orders." </p><p>The Earl banned all conversation on military matters from the dining table shortly thereafter before a fight could break out between his two sons and Lord Hervey told them tales about his cousins instead, nothing too indiscreet but enough to make them laugh until the brothers reconciled somewhat, albeit sulkily. And then, again, the gentlemen retired to billiards and drinks and cards, while Jemima and her cousin's wife took themselves off to the piano. They could hear it through the corridors as they played and sang a few merry Christmas carols, and Will opened the door to sing back down the hall in a rather tuneless but enthusiastic tenor. Soon enough, they all abandoned their games and strained conversation and joined the ladies for a sing-song, glasses in hand. It didn't seem a bad end to the day, John thought, but then of course his day was not yet over. </p><p>The west tower was the oldest part of the house and, for the most part, remained unheated. There were no fireplaces there, only a tall spiral stair that made John feel faintly dizzy as he ascended with a flickering lamp in hand, and a small number of circular rooms that led off that stair. The first seemed to be an old playroom, with its rocking horse and dollhouse covered up with thick sheets to protect them from the dust. The second housed a large quantity of chairs, no doubt stowed there out of the way for when the Earl hosted a concert or a lecture or a party of some kind; he was a moderately scientific man, Will had told him, who funded expeditions to far-away places, and it was unusual to go more than a month or two without some learned fellow making an appearance. </p><p>On the third floor, though, as John's leg was beginning to burn, there was light creeping out from beneath the heavy wooden door. When he knocked, Lord Hervey called, "Yes, come in," and so he entered. And perhaps there was no fire in the room but Hervey had lit so many lamps and that it felt almost as warm as an open hearth. </p><p>"Captain Marlott," Hervey said. He'd removed his jacket and was standing there in his waistcoat and shirtsleeves, though he somehow failed to look any more casual for it. He gestured to a high stool that sat by his desk. "Please, sit." </p><p>John sat. Will's clothes that he was wearing felt all the wronger for the position he found himself in, or perhaps his discomfort was the steady flicker of the lamps as Lord Hervey's gaze moved over him. Hervey wasn't the most diminutive man John had ever met but he was slighter than John was himself, a little shorter, paler, motions more refined, and the intensity of his gaze took him off guard again for not the first time since they'd met. He wondered if that was simply how he was, or if he saw something in him that intrigued him. He'd encountered that before, he supposed; some men sought out his company for his bluff straightforwardness, as he supposed Will did, and others delighted in their supposed superiority of class. He thought Lord Hervey might be of the former type, but the latter would still not have surprised. </p><p>"Would you rest your hand on the desk and keep it still, please?" Hervey said, more instruction than request, and John did so. Hervey took his hand in his and turned it palm down instead, and the touch of his fingers, the press of his thumb against the centre of his palm, made John feel a fraction less sure of himself than he had been when he'd first entered the tower. But Hervey was training as a surgeon, he told himself, and likely saw a number of patients, and his warm fingers on John's still warming hand should be construed as clinical. More professional than the man who'd sewn up his leg, he hoped, but clinical nonetheless. </p><p>Hervey positioned a lamp and took a seat nearby, with a piece of neat white paper on the desktop and a pencil in his hand. "Daylight would be best, of course," he said, as he gestured to the lamp. "But as we both have other obligations, I fear we must make do." Then he set about his sketching business, while John tried very hard to keep his fingers still. </p><p>It was a strange process to watch. He'd seen other men draw, of course, but most of them hadn't been drawing him and hadn't been looking at his hand with such strange intensity as they set down all his details, large as life, upon the page. Hervey's work was excellent, precise, with an edge to his gaze that said he'd have very much liked to have peered beneath John's skin and seen the mechanisms that it hid. </p><p>He watched the sketch take shape, listening to his own breath and to Hervey's, listening to the ticking of their pocket watches and the periodic chime of the carriage clock sitting on a shelf nearby. And, as he watched, as he held his pose there on the stool, his damned thigh began to ache. He shifted as best he could without moving his left hand and rubbed there, pressing down hard with the heel of his hand, until Hervey paused and looked at what he was doing, then he curled his hand into a fist to stop himself. </p><p>"Does it bother you?" Hervey asked. </p><p>"Some," John admitted. </p><p>Hervey set down his pencil. He lifted his hand and gestured at John's thigh. "May I?" he asked. </p><p>John nodded awkwardly, not sure how to tell him no and not sure if he wanted to say no anyway. He watched as Hervey rested his hand against his thigh, traced the margins of the wound with his fingertips over John's borrowed breeches, then pressed his warm palm flat there over it. John's chest felt just a little tight, and his cheeks a little warm, disconcerted as he was by Hervey's touch. And he expected some kind of diagnosis, perhaps, some exhortation to keep it warm if it hurt in the cold and to keep moving to encourage his recovery, but Hervey just took back his hand and looked up at him again. </p><p>"Thank you, Captain," he said. "I believe that's more than enough for tonight. It's rather late." </p><p>John nodded again, just as awkwardly, and he stood up to return to the house. But as he left, lamp in hand, he could almost feel Lord Hervey's gaze on him. When he turned to close the door, he found he was right; Hervey was watching and only as he door began to close did he look away.</p><p>John left. But as he stripped and lay down in bed, he felt like he'd left part of himself with Hervey in that tower room. </p><p>---</p><p>The next day was very much like the one that had preceded it, except that after a frustratingly leisurely morning, this time the three soldiers made their way by carriage into the small town nearby. The streets were slippery with snow that had been long since ground down into slush beneath a number of boots, and John would have infinitely preferred a dusty Spanish plain to almost falling on a patch of ice and catching himself in such a way that his neck pulled with it. </p><p>Gough bought a book in the small bookshop where they briefly ran into Hervey and DeWitt collecting medical texts; he paid with what John suspected was Will's money, though he couldn't say Will looked too appalled by the idea. Will bought a scarf that he wrapped jauntily around his neck and then gave to the shivering coachman as they made their way back to the house. And everywhere they went, from the post office where Gough posted a letter to the pub where they sat themselves down for a pint of beer, John was aware of how people looked at them. He'd have liked to have explained that he wasn't an earl's son like Will was. He was the son of a dirt-poor seamstress and who knew what father, who'd made his way in life by chance and subsequent hard fucking work. Everly Chase was almost more foreign to him than some battlefield far overseas.</p><p>Dinner was quiet enough that night, no incidents between the brothers, though possibly due to the fact that the Earl's land agent and the local doctor joined them for it, and the two pretty daughters of the local squire. Jemima seemed friendly with the girls, who were quite taken with Gough though John would have liked to have warned them from that particular tack. Then there was a good deal of talk of investment and infrastructure and things that bored John very near to tears before Lord Hervey excused himself back to his studies and John, not long after, slipped out, too. </p><p>That night, Hervey had John pull off one boot and one sock and settled down cross-legged on a cushion on the floor to sketch his foot as John tried very hard not to move from his position. Hervey sketched the pull of tendons underneath the skin then shifted to make out the arch and then the long stretch of his Achilles. His fingertips grazed John's ankle bone and made him shiver, which made Hervey smile. Then he shifted, pushed himself up onto his knees on the floorboards there in front of him, and sat back on his heels. John had seen naked women more demure than Hervey looked then, with a lock of dark hair that curled against his forehead and a depth to his gaze that made John rub his mouth with the back of his hand to keep from saying something untoward to ease the tension it was likely he was the only one that felt. </p><p>"Would you give me a hand, Captain?" Hervey asked, and reached one hand up to him. John took it, and he gave a steady pull to help him back up onto his feet. Hervey was only as tall as John was while he was sitting on the stool, their eyes level, and their hands remained joined a little longer than John knew was needed. </p><p>"Are we done?" John asked. His voice felt thick, and his throat tight, and his skin suffused with the heat of Hervey's hand. </p><p>"For tonight?" Hervey said, with a faint smile and a sparkle to his eye that might just have been the light. "Yes, we're done for tonight." Then he stepped away and set his sketch onto the desk. John re-donned sock and boot. And as he left, he turned back and found Hervey watching from his desk, one elbow propped up on the desktop and his chin propped against his hand. He looked thoughtful, and young, and sure of himself in ways that John had never been, and more than that: he looked sure of John. </p><p>"I'll see you tomorrow, yes?" Hervey asked, and the only way in which John could reply was by giving a tight nod. Perhaps he should have told him no, and asked for settlement of their account, but he didn't; he just left the room and closed the door behind him, and then he went to bed. </p><p>The third day was much like the first two, except that preparations for the Earl's annual Christmas ball had begun in earnest. The kitchens were all activity that didn't stop for days to come and Will's brother suggested they go out shooting in the woods nearby, though John couldn't drum up much enthusiasm for taking aim at local wildlife. They shot at targets on the lawn instead, which had the advantage that the ladies could join them; John, their expert marksman, showed Jemima how to hold the rifle while Will gave his sister-in-law some similar instruction. Gough put a shot into a nearby tree rather than the target, which was unsurprising given he was missing an arm to steady the gun, and Hervey's surgeon friend DeWitt fared very little better. And then Lord Hervey took a turn. </p><p>"You know, I've never really shot before," he said, and cast a glance at John that could have meant a thousand different things or something quite specific. When Hervey pulled the loaded rifle to his shoulder, while the others talked and warmed their hands and drank hot cocoa fresh from the kitchen, John stepped in close to correct his stance. John settled the butt of the gun into place so that the recoil wouldn't bruise. He nudged Hervey's feet with his own in the snow to encourage an adjustment, then took off his gloves and stood up tight against his back to show him how to square his hips. He put his bare hands over Hervey's, felt Hervey's chilly fingers leech the warmth out from his own as he demonstrated sighting down the barrel to the target. And when he pulled the trigger, John felt it through Hervey's body with his chest pressed up to Hervey's back. He felt it in his bones, and somewhere altogether lower, before he stepped back. </p><p>"You're a good teacher, Captain," Hervey told him, as he held the rifle out to him, seemingly unruffled by the contact in a way John wasn't. And as Hervey joined the others in a cup of cocoa, John reloaded the rifle and then took a shot of his own. Somehow, it didn't steady him the way he'd hoped it would. </p><p>That night, after dinner, after a shoddy game of billiards that he lost quite thoroughly, John climbed the west tower to Hervey's study. He knocked, and went inside, and Hervey asked him to take off his borrowed jacket, and his waistcoat, and then his shirt. He pulled it off over his head and held it in both hands, in his lap, as Hervey's gaze moved over him. Then Hervey sketched him, tilting up his chin with his fingertips so he could see his Adam's apple work, raising one arm above John's head so he could see the effect that had on the muscles layered over his ribs. John had scars here and there - bayonets and powder burns, stray shot from French muskets, and Hervey took his time studying them, easing the skin this way and that, asking how he'd come by them. John told him, feeling a flush creep through his face and neck and the tips of his ears. It didn't feel clinical at all. It felt entirely personal. The sketches Hervey made felt oddly personal, too.</p><p>And when he put on his shirt and left again, when he went up to his room again and stripped off his clothes again, he couldn't deny that he found his cock half hard under his borrowed trousers. He couldn't deny that his half-hard cock stiffened up to full erection within seconds as he wrapped his hand around it. He couldn't deny that it was Daniel Hervey he was thinking of as he began to stroke. </p><p>He'd made a mistake coming to Everly Chase. </p><p>---</p><p>Deliveries arrived in the next day's snow, ready for the party. It was the twenty-third then, just one more day to go to Christmas Eve and the ball about which Will had been raving since before they'd left London. John couldn't wait for it to be over and then maybe he'd stop feeling quite so nervous. And maybe, once the snow finally stopped, he could make his way back to the hospital and hope he'd be cleared to return to Spain. </p><p>The snow was thick enough that leaving the house was impractical, though John was feeling well enough to stroll about the house without his cane. Will called him a show-off and then proceeded to play half a sonata on the pianoforte from memory with his eyes trained amusedly on John, so that made them more than equal. John had never even played a note, and Will patted the stool and had him sit down to try it, but soon enough he was called away to discuss what his brother was ominously referring to as the party's Wine Situation. John sat there alone, hearing the bustle of deliveries and Gough having a rather loud disagreement with DeWitt over some obscure point of Latin grammar, and though Jemima and her cousin's wife were nowhere to be seen, John felt they probably had the best of the situation if they were keeping well away. </p><p>It was Lord Hervey who sat down next to him, his hip nudging John's there on the bench that really wasn't meant for two grown men. John's pulse gave a thud so hard that his hands shook over the keyboard and he folded them both into fists on his thighs before Hervey could see. </p><p>"Perhaps this is something <i>I</i> can teach <i>you</i>," Hervey said, as he set both hands down on the keys. He was looking at John, his head turned and incredibly close, as he played a chord. "A brief lesson, at least. To repay you for yesterday." </p><p>"I don't think I'm built for that, My Lord," John replied. "I've a soldier's hands more than a musician's." </p><p>Hervey smiled an almost teasing smile as he played another chord. "You forget, Captain," he said. "I've seen your hands. I think they'd answer very well." He reached past John's left arm, across his body, and took him by his right wrist. He guided his hand to the keys and arranged his fingers on them, his own resting warmly over the top. He pressed down lightly and the chord sounded, but then John eased his hand away again. </p><p>"You're trembling," Hervey said. "Are you well?"</p><p>John nodded perhaps a little too quickly. "Yes, I'm well."</p><p>Hervey slid his hand onto John's injured thigh. The rifle ball had hit relatively high and Hervey's thumb traced the scar as his fingers rested at John's inseam, and while John couldn't say he'd never had a hand in quite that location, it certainly hadn't been attached to an earl. It hadn't even been attached to a man, and he'd been sitting half-drunk in a Portuguese tavern rather than an entirely different earl's country home. And the next place that not-earl's hand had gone to was John's cock over his uniform trousers, but he couldn't think that that was the intended final destination of His Lordship the Earl Hervey.</p><p>"Is your injury bothering you?" Hervey asked. </p><p>John set his jaw and swallowed. "No," he replied. "I don't need a doctor, My Lord." So Hervey gave John's thigh a light pat and went back to the piano. </p><p>John told himself to leave him there. There were other things he could be doing, he thought - he could find a book in the library and sit down to read for a while, maybe practice his terrible Spanish or his worse French if they had something on those lines. He could have told DeWitt and Gough he thought they were both a pair of pricks for arguing in another man's home, even when the man who'd invited them to stay was as argumentative sometimes as them both put together. He could have found the ladies and sat down to a quiet game of whist, which was probably indecent at that hour but neither of them seemed to care <i>too</i> much about those kinds of rules - he supposed that kind of freedom came from their kind of titles. But he stayed exactly where he was, hip to hip with Daniel Hervey, while he played. </p><p>Hervey leaned forward just a little and John leaned back to make room so Hervey's right shoulder tucked just in front of John's left one. Hervey's right elbow rested against John's midriff and shifted against him as he played, apparently heedless of how improper their proximity was, or perhaps that freedom, too, came with his title. He wasn't an excellent player but he had a certain mechanical capacity for reproducing the dots on a page that John couldn't comprehend, and the smell of whatever substance it was in which he'd washed his hair enhanced the experience for John well past the limits of Lord Hervey's musical talents. He hadn't wished quite so fervently to press his mouth to another man's in perhaps ten years or more. He hadn't wished to feel another man's hands on him in at least that long, but that was the truth of it: he found this man intoxicating. </p><p>They parted soon after: Will came to find him once the Wine Situation was resolved to his fussing brother's satisfaction and with a wry glance at his cousin that John really couldn't read, he whisked him off to a game of billiards. The squire's eldest son and eldest daughter had both called, apparently more intrepid about their outdoor pursuits than any of the Chase's occupants, and while the daughter spoke with Jemima, John and Will both lost several games to the son. John didn't mind losing - his heart wasn't exactly in billiards, since the only thing he'd ever been much good at was hitting the mark from the back end of a rifle and frankly, even then, he didn't mind losing; when the stakes were highest, and lives on the line, what mattered was he knew that he could make the shot and not miss it. </p><p>The day seemed to pass with near-intolerable slowness. Gough and DeWitt joined them, and then Hervey and his elder cousin, and they drank a little and smoked a little and kept to topics that wouldn't divide them, such as the weather and the state of the roads. They asked the squire's son and daughter to stay for dinner and sent word to the manor when they accepted, and the conversation continued over mutton and wine. And then Hervey excused himself to return to his study. WIll and his brother made their way into the billiard room to settle some old score over a hand of cards, and slowly the others spread hither and yon. John, for his part, went out to the west tower. </p><p>The sounds he could hear from the far side of Hervey's study door were not the sounds of sketching, and he knew he should turn around and go back the way he'd come; it wasn't as if he'd been paid for his work so far, if he could bring himself to call it work, and a night off to have a drink or two with Will and his similarly belligerent brother wouldn't exactly have killed him if it came to that. He knew he should go because he could hear the creak-creak-creak of Hervey's desk as it shifted slightly against the floor and he could hear their breath - <i>their</i> breath, because he understood that the man he'd come to see was not alone. It was obvious what he was doing, but John opened the door nonetheless, with a tight coil of dread wrenching hard at his gut. </p><p>Neither man was naked by any stretch of the imagination. They were both actually quite well clothed, except for Hervey's trousers that were caught around his thighs and the front fall of DeWitt's was clearly unbuttoned, and it was obvious what was happening between them. Hervey was bent forward over his desk that was still spread with sketches of various parts of John's anatomy, and DeWitt was ploughing into him from behind, but only for a moment more; DeWitt made a rather anguished noise as he pulled back and hurriedly rearranged his clothes as he was hurriedly exiting the room. And Hervey sighed, and he stood, and he rearranged his own clothes, too. </p><p>"You're a little early, Captain," Hervey said, raising his brows at him once his trousers were back into place, then he gestured to the stool. "But shall we?"</p><p>So, somewhat bizarrely given what exactly he'd just witnessed, they proceeded much as normal. When Hervey asked him to take off his shirt, he did; he set his coat and waistcoat down on the desk where Hervey had, until so recently, been fucking. He sat down shirtless on the stool with his shirt on he lap, and remained there when Hervey passed behind him, out of view. He didn't flinch when Hervey used his hands to position him this way and that, to sketch a shoulderblade or the nape of his neck or the definition of his spine. He didn't flinch when Hervey pushed at the waist of his trousers and dragged them down just a few inches lower, though his face felt warm. </p><p>The whole time that Hervey sketched, John told himself he wasn't thinking about what he'd seen, but the truth was that he was. He was thinking about Daniel Hervey bent over his desk just a few feet away, his arse bare and his hair just so slightly dishevelled. John hadn't been able to look away at the moment DeWitt pulled out and Christ, the shine of oil on Hervey's skin, the shadow of his jutting cock between his thighs...it was so easy to imagine him taking DeWitt's place. His own cock stiffened and he was glad of the shirt covering his lap as Hervey's hands brushed against his bare back. And when Hervey was done, later, so many ticks of the clock gone by, the final sketch of the night went all the way down to the top of his trousers that rested just above the crack of his arse. He was a better artist than a musician, John thought, and his music hadn't been bad at all. </p><p>When they were done, he put his shirt back on, and his waistcoat, his neckcloth, jacket, all the things he'd need to look like nothing untoward had happened in the tower, though he supposed the explanation was perfectly innocent. <i>Almost</i> perfectly innocent. Hervey sat at his desk with the sketches all arrayed there, shuffling them together into a neat little stack, and John hated that his ridiculous erection hadn't faded as he went toward the door - just one more night he'd spend with cock in hand, he supposed, attempting to pretend he wasn't thinking about his fucking his friend's cousin. His friend's <i>male</i> cousin, his friend's cousin who was twenty-four years old against his own near thirty-five. His friend's cousin who was a fucking <i>earl</i>, albeit apparently minorly impoverished, not that John saw any sign of that. His friend's cousin, who he'd caught taking it up the arse from another man. A supercilious other man, for whom John suddenly felt a thorough lack of affection. </p><p>"I'm sorry, Lord Hervey," he said, when he turned back at the door, though frankly he hadn't meant to say anything about it at all. "For earlier. I didn't intend to intrude." And Hervey laughed, not managing to seem embarrassed about it. He said he didn't mind, but he hoped it could remain their secret; John, for his part, assured him that it would, then left the room. </p><p>It wasn't until he was stripped down and lying in bed that the question finally came to him: he hadn't meant to intrude, but hadn't Hervey been expecting him? </p><p>When he wrapped his hand around his cock and braced his heels against the bed, when he closed his eyes and stroked, he told himself he hadn't meant to intrude. But he wondered if perhaps he'd been meant to.</p><p>---</p><p>The day of the ball was semi-controlled chaos, as far as John could tell from his vantage point as far out of it as possible.</p><p>It was Christmas Eve and the whole house spent at least an hour outdoors in the gardens gathering greens to bring in for decoration while the light snow swirled around them and their breath fogged the air. John hadn't felt much enthusiasm for Christmas ever in his life before but he supposed the general atmosphere of cheer must have got to him because he found himself pelting snowballs at Will, who dragged his brother into the game like they were nine years old again, and Jemima seemed only too happy to participate. Lord Hervey watched with an air of quiet amusement, blowing on his bare hands every now and then until John ducked out from the match and took off his gloves and offered them to him. Hervey took them with a simultaneous smile and frown; they were worn from a number of winters in service overseas, and maybe they weren't as supple or elegant as Hervey's own gloves, which he'd likely left in another coat somewhere inside, and they were perhaps a size or two too big as well as moulded to the shape of John's own hands, but he put them on as John watched. Of course, then Will aimed a snowball directly at John's head and he whooped, a smile coming to his face as he scooped up more snow barehanded to retaliate. </p><p>They dashed about like children as best they could while Hervey and the elder Fitzjames' wife stood aside and watched in amusement until the Earl appeared and the lot of them hastily dusted off their hands and coats. John's hands were red and chilled through and while the others took their gathered holly and mistletoe and evergreens inside, Lord Hervey caught John by the elbow. They stood in the snow as Hervey took John's hands in his, the sensation of his own gloves on his bare skin somewhat disconcerting. He rubbed his palms with his gloved thumbs then took off the gloves and tucked them under his arm and rubbed John's hands with both his warm ones. Then he brought them up and blew warm air against John's cupped hands while he peered at him straight over them. It was the most damnably intimate John had ever felt in his life, for the brief moment that it lasted before they went inside. </p><p>It seemed like half the county came for the ball, dressed up in all their finest clothes and ready to enjoy themselves in the most thorough and extensive manner possible. There was music and dancing in the Chase's ballroom and punch, and chatter, and John hung back with Will and Gough in his Rifleman greens against their bright red coats. He brought his cane down even though he wasn't finding any strong requirement for it, and he found it did the trick; no one tried to persuade him into dancing, though as the night wore on and the three of them sneaked outside, Will and Gough danced a ridiculous jig on the freshly snow-cleared terrace. John hadn't laughed so much in a long, long time and though the night was long, it seemed to flash by in an instant as he watched Jemima dancing with her brother through the terrace doors. Lord Hervey was an elegant dancer, it seemed, and the ladies in the party seemed eager to claim his attention. John smiled wryly to himself and turned away.</p><p>It was already the early morning by the time the music died down and the guests began to make their way home, some in their carriages and some on foot. John caught himself yawning even as he felt some not minor regret that events had kept him from Lord Hervey's study for the evening. Then, once the last of the guests had finally made their exit, the Chase's current occupants started to make their way up the stairs to bed. </p><p>John knew he should have rung the bell and asked one of the Earl's staff to find him a drink to wash away the dry little tickle in his throat, but it seemed like such a terrible waste of their time when he could just go down to the kitchen himself. He made his way downstairs, the ache in his leg making his strides a little uneven; most of the servants were already safely tucked up in bed by then and the young footman who was scampering through from the stables was only too happy to point John to the leftover wine so he could swipe a glass of it himself. The footman made his exit and John was set to return to his room when he bumped into another visitor from above stairs; he bumped into Lord Hervey in the doorway and both of them stopped abruptly, John spilling a few drops of the rather full glass over the back of his hand so he swapped hands and licked his knuckles clean while Hervey's eyes were on him. </p><p>He expected Hervey would step back, or he would, and they'd conduct some kind of polite exchange about raiding the kitchens in the dead of night or how wine would spoil his sleep, but neither of them moved away or spoke at all. In the low light of the yule log burning in the kitchen fireplace, Hervey actually moved a fraction closer. He slipped the fingers of one hand under the hem of John's green jacket and he looked up, above the doorway, to where the servants had hung the kissing bough, all green and laced through with mistletoe. And John, standing there mutely like his tongue had just fucked off into Lincolnshire, looked first at the bough and then at Lord Hervey, so close that he could see the faint creases in his parted lips. He looked up again, and down again, almost comically, and when he did so Hervey was smiling, some of those creases smoothed out of his lips by it. And still, he didn't say a word; he just stepped closer still, tugged John closer still, leaned up and pressed his mouth to his. </p><p>Hervey kissed him. It wasn't quick and wasn't chaste and wasn't teasing - he held him there with that hand at his coat and wound his free hand into John's hair and he kissed him, framed John's lower lip with both of his and sucked there just for a second. He kissed him, pushed in close enough that John could feel the heat of him, and it took him so utterly by surprise that for a moment he simply didn't react at all. Of course, by the time he understood that he wanted to, with an urgency that pounded in his veins like Will's father's good whisky, it was already too late. Hervey stepped back, and he raised his brows, then reached up and plucked a berry from the mistletoe up overhead that he threw into the fire, one less kiss remaining for the kissing bough. </p><p>Hervey turned. Foolishly, John let him walk away. And, once he'd gone, once all that remained of him was his ever-fainter footsteps down the corridor and the ghost of his lips against John's, he drained the contents of his glass in one long mouthful and then poured himself another. </p><p>It didn't help. </p><p>---</p><p>The following morning, Christmas morning, they went to church. </p><p>It was a long trudge through the snow and they'd all declined the carriage, much to their near-immediate regret. Jemima took her brother's arm and trailed her skirts through the snow and John couldn't say he regretted wearing his military boots and a pair of thick socks underneath that made walking a little difficult but kept his toes from freezing. Then, once they arrived, the Earl's family took the first pew to the left of the aisle and the squire's family took the first pew to the right of the aisle and John shuffled into the second row with Gough. It was, unfortunately, not even close to far enough away to keep him from all manner of thoughts about Daniel Hervey that were entirely inappropriate for a house of God. As it was, though, he found it hard to feel too terribly ashamed. </p><p>It seemed a long day, though John was thankful he hadn't drunk nearly so much as Will or Gough or most of the ball's attendees. The church was full of hungover townspeople trying desperately to stay awake or otherwise cradling headaches and afterwards the slow walk back up to the Chase seemed to do a little good, though the mood back at the house was somewhat subdued. Lord Hervey and DeWitt were nowhere to be seen and, come to think of it, John hadn't seen DeWitt at the previous day's festivities. So, after a rather tame dinner and a lacklustre game or two of charades in which no one's heart was to be found, when the house's occupants scattered for the night, John made his way to the west tower. </p><p>"I won't apologise," Hervey said, straightforwardly, when John let himself into his study. "Don't tell me I ought to." </p><p>"For what, My Lord?" John replied, and Hervey gave him a look that said nothing quite so much as <i>you know very well for what</i>. John's mouth twisted wryly and he rubbed his hands against his jacket, and Hervey turned to him from his seat at the desk, brows raised. </p><p>"I don't want you to apologise," John said, the words coming out in such a tumble that they made Hervey frown. </p><p>"You don't?"</p><p>"No. We have an arrangement, don't we?" </p><p>Hervey folded his hands in his lap. Hervey looked at him standing there, lingering in the doorway, letting out all the room's warm air. Then he said, "Very well, Captain. That being the case, please take off your clothes."</p><p>"I'm sorry, what?"</p><p>"Your clothes." Hervey gestured at him, one-handed, head to toe. "Take them off. All of them." He lifted a pencil from the desk. "I have another sketch to make." </p><p>John undressed. He was moderately certain that it was one of the worst ideas he'd had in his life, and he was moderately certain that it would lead to scandal or shame or else some kind of personal humiliation, but he did take off his clothes just as Hervey had instructed. He started with his coat and kept going, boots, trousers, underwear, until he was standing there barefoot on the chilly floorboards in nothing but his bare skin with Lord Hervey's eyes on him, steady and dark and serious. That look made him perhaps even more nervous than the fact that he was naked in the first place; but for the look on Hervey's face, he could have almost convinced himself that this was just a commonplace medical examination of some kind, but he couldn't come close to convincing himself that that was what it was. </p><p>"Bend down," Hervey said, his voice studiously even. He patted his desk. "Here." </p><p>So, John did that, too. Though when he leaned down on his forearms, he found himself saying, "I would have thought Mr. DeWitt might help instead." </p><p>Hervey chuckled. "Captain, are you suggesting that he take your place in my studies of anatomy or that you should take his place in penetrating me?" he asked, and John could feel himself blush hotly as a spike of shamed arousal shot straight into his cock. "You might have noticed that Mr. DeWitt is no longer in attendance here," Hervey continued, as he shuffled a few papers on the desk beside him. "Please don't mistake my involvement with Thomas DeWitt for anything more than purely sexual in nature. We are not friends, Captain. We are certainly not lovers." Then he reached over to trail one hand over John's spine, which made him shiver deeply. "Spread your cheeks for me," he said, and gave John's arse a tap with the back of his hand to demonstrate exactly what he meant. </p><p>John did as he was asked. He leaned down, his head turned and one shoulder pressed a little awkwardly against the desk, and he reached back with both hands to spread his own arse wide. His face burned but his cock thickened, nudging up against the desk's thick edge. He palmed his cheeks wide and he edged down with his middle fingers as Hervey moved to watch. He set his fingertips close by his rim and eased it open just a fraction, and Hervey made a low sound of approval. </p><p>He sketched him like that, his hole exposed entirely, John's cock so hard it throbbed. He could hear the lead of the pencil on the paper, the sound of Hervey's faintly laboured breath, the ticking of the clock behind it all as the second turned to minutes, one after another. His shoulder ached, and his thigh ached, his wrists ached, and he wondered not quite idly if he might just come all over Hervey's desk from the fact that his eyes were on him there, but then Hervey put down the paper upon which he'd been sketching. It drew John's gaze, and it was fucking obscene. </p><p>"Do you sketch many arseholes?" John asked, in a fumbled attempt at levity. </p><p>Lord Hervey chuckled. "One or two," he replied. "When it assists my studies." He moved, stood up from his seat, and trailed his fingertips down the line of John's spine. He trailed his fingertips between his cheeks, lightly, over his still very much exposed hole, and John could not disguise the way his knees went weak from it. He slumped harder against the desk. He bit back something like a moan. </p><p>"Would you mind?" Hervey asked, as he pressed there. "Internal examination is an extremely valuable tool." And John, hopelessly aroused as he found himself, could do nothing but shake his head against the desk. </p><p>One of the many bottles in Hervey's study contained a quantity of oil; John saw him tip some of it out into a wide-brimmed jaw and bring it to the desk. He saw him dip his fingers in, the first two, almost right down to the knuckles, till they came up shiny when he pulled them back out. Then he felt those fingers stroking at his rim, firmly, though not exactly medically. He felt Hervey press there, just as firmly, until his hole was ready to relax enough to take his fingers in, knuckle by knuckle, bit by bit. It had been a while, he thought - he'd had drunken fumblings in his youth, the odd man here and there in his army travels, but he'd never felt so thoroughly bared as he did in that moment. He'd never felt so damned naked as with Lord Hervey's elegant surgeon's fingers pushing up inside his arse, making his hips shift from the sudden and completely, utterly welcome penetration. His cock leaked. His stomach tightened. And when Hervey's fingers crooked, they brushed a place inside him that made John, overwrought as he already was, very nearly sob out loud with the sharp, roiling pleasure of it. </p><p>But then, abruptly, Hervey withdrew. John was left there, aching and half-desperate, his bare arse slicked with oil that probably glistened between his cheeks in the lamplight, and he wondered for a moment if Hervey meant to have him like that, to oil his cock and take his arse so thoroughly that any limp he might have in the morning would be at least half from the sex they'd had. He didn't, though; Hervey took John by the wrists and eased his hands from his spread cheeks. He urged him back up to his feet and kissed him, hard, almost too hard, and when John pressed his scarred thigh between Hervey's legs, he found him hard inside his trousers, so hard that he groaned from the firmness of the contact with his mouth pressed up to John's. </p><p>Neither of them lasted long and John wondered, as they were rubbing there against each other, his arse pressed to the edge of the desk and Hervey's fingers in his hair, and on his skin, if perhaps it wasn't better like this - a quick fuck over the desk in a chilly room in an age-old tower might have been disappointing somehow, just a few thrusts then it was done. As it was, the two of them rutted against each other, desperate, gasping, until John shuddered, hips jerking, and came over Hervey's perfectly nice clothes. Hervey didn't seem to care; he wasn't long until he found himself undone in a quite similar fashion, only within his trousers rather than without. He chuckled against John's neck, breathless and wry, and John found himself holding onto him as if his knees might buckle if missing his support. </p><p>"I wondered if it would come to this," Hervey said, by John's ear. He had one hand in John's hair and one hand on his back, splayed there as he pressed his entirely clothed front against John's bare skin. The fabric tickled in places, almost scratched in others, made his softening cock twitch in ways that did very much leave his knees weak. </p><p>"Come to what, My Lord?" John replied, with both his hands full of the back of Hervey's waistcoat. "A bit of a fumble in Your Lordship's study?"</p><p>Hervey chuckled again and withdrew just a fraction, a twist to his lips as he looked at him. "Is that what this is?" he asked, as he drew his fingertips down John's chest. "A bit of a fumble?"</p><p>And when John frowned and asked him, "Is it not?" he wondered if perhaps that said more about him than he'd meant it to. But Hervey cupped his jaw and kissed him, quickly, perhaps a little teasingly. </p><p>"Why don't you come back tomorrow and we'll find that out together?" he replied. Then he leaned in, the full length of his body pressed to him, so he could retrieve John's shirt from the pile on the desk. "But do go to bed now, Captain. It's been a rather tiring few days." </p><p>John laughed, and Hervey smiled at him, pleased and easy, as he sat himself down and quite openly watched him as he dressed. And when John leaned down to kiss him goodnight, a nervous twist inside his gut that his gesture might meet with rejection, Hervey welcomed that kiss with recognisable ardour. John felt a bloom of warmth within his chest and he wondered perhaps, as he left him there, if Will hadn't been right after all: the aristocracy wasn't composed entirely of pricks after all. </p><p>---</p><p>He remembers the days that followed as a blur of time that flowed together, pleasing and welcome in an entirely unexpected way. </p><p>During the day, he spent his time with Will and Gough or talking with Jemima, or sitting with Lord Hervey just as far apart across a room from one another as it was physically possible for them to be, just so his fingers wouldn't stray to touch him of their own accord. That first morning after the night before, for instance, Boxing Day, he'd have liked to have kissed him at breakfast until his lips were red and his hair was tousled and had him up against the nearest wall. The way Hervey looked at him, he thought, the feeling might well have been mutual.</p><p>In the day, John walked in the grounds or he borrowed a horse and he rode into town just to get a change or scenery. In the evening, he dined with the Earl and his sons, his daughter-in-law, niece, nephew, Captain Gough, and the occasional passing guest; when he asked, Will said his father rather liked the house being full, and given the Earl's congenial though sometimes brusque conversation, John was happy enough to believe that. And then, at night, he went to the west tower, and he shut the door behind him so they'd keep the heat in. Lord Hervey would look up from his desk and smile as he sat back to look at him. </p><p>He remembers Hervey sketching his thigh, the wound he'd had, the scar it had left, as he ran the fingers of his free hand over it and made John shiver; it looks so much more matter-of-fact on paper than it did on his skin, but then Hervey put down his pencil and brought his mouth down to it. He pressed his lips there, kissed John's scar with a kind of far-from-holy reverence that made John's heart beat hard within his chest. </p><p>He remembers Hervey sketching his face, his eyes closed, lips parted. He sketched one ear, his eye through the lens of a magnifying glass until all the striations were laid bare. He remembers how Hervey had him sit down on his chair instead of on the stool and he opened up his mouth to dip his thumb inside, trace his teeth, stroke his tongue, then tease him there with the tip of his erection. He sketched him like that, his hard cock inside his mouth, nothing studious about it, and afterwards, in bed, John brought himself to the brink again just from the thought of it. </p><p>He remembers easing back his foreskin so that Hervey could sketch the glans beneath then suck him, on his knees, eyes closed, lips red, chest heaving, with John's fingers in his hair. And then, as his eyes opened, as he sat back on his heels and looked up at him, he said, "Come to bed with me."</p><p>"Won't somebody notice?" John replied, though the fact his cock was still bobbing there between his thighs, just barely beginning to soften, likely said a lot about how easily led he could be. </p><p>"Possibly," Hervey conceded, with as thoughtful a look on his face as John had ever seen for a man who had just sucked a cock quite so thoroughly. "But my valet is discreet about these matters and I suspect you're hardly likely to go bragging to my cousin." </p><p>John knew he should say no, but he didn't say no. He tucked himself back into his borrowed pair of trousers and he followed Lord Hervey down the tower steps back to the house. He followed him up the staircase and down the hall toward the family's bedrooms and when Hervey opened the door to his own room, John slipped inside into the dark. They stripped each other in the low light of their one shared lamp then slipped into bed beneath the sheets, but soon they pushed them back, and Hervey settled on his knees, thighs wide. When John pressed his oiled fingers up inside him, Hervey gasped and arched his back and pressed down hard against them. When John pressed the tip of his oiled cock inside him, when he inched in until his chest pressed tight up to his back, Hervey turned his head just far enough to meet his gaze with one dark eye. </p><p>"Under the circumstances, Captain," he said, his voice strained, and his arse pulling hot and tight around him, "I'd like very much if you would call me Daniel." </p><p>And John laughed, lowly, breathlessly, as he rocked his hips to push in deep. "Well, then, I'm John," he said, and he wrapped one arm around Hervey's waist to hold him there as he fucked him, slowly. With his free hand, he cupped the far side of Hervey's jaw and as he moved, their mouths could almost meet. </p><p>The twelve days of Christmas passed more quickly than John would have thought possible, while the yule log burned in the kitchen hearth and the mistletoe berries of the kissing bough disappeared one after the other. One night, he put on Lord Hervey's shirt to go to dinner though the fit perhaps wasn't quite ideal. One night, he wore a neckcloth that was his instead of Will's. And then, on that final night, he went out to the tower one last time. </p><p>Lord Hervey's sketches were neatly stacked inside a large manila folder that closed up with string and on the cover, in his neatly inked hand, were the initials <i>J.M.</i> John ran the trigger-calloused tip of his forefinger over the letters, almost expecting them to smudge, but it seemed they'd long since dried. </p><p>"Is this what it comes down to, in the end?" he asked. He thought he sounded wistful, though perhaps what Hervey heard was bitterness. </p><p>"It did always have to end, John," Hervey said. "All things must, I suppose. And I've no doubt you're going back to Spain." </p><p>It was a fact he couldn't deny, so he didn't deny it. What he did was kiss him, deeply, soundly, maybe even desperately, and then spend one last night in a bed that wasn't even the one that the family had lent to him. He spent one last night in Lord Hervey's bed, inside him, red-faced, gasping, grasping, until they were entirely spent. He wasn't sure he could have given more if he'd been paid to. </p><p>Of course, when he left, when he returned to the hospital for two last days' evaluation, he found he'd been paid after all. Clipped to that payment was a note, in Hervey's clear, familiar hand: <i>For anatomical sketches</i>, it read. <i>Yours, D.H.</i> And John laughed to himself, this time with a definite bitter edging to his fondness. </p><p>He did wonder, he had to admit, how very much <i>his</i> Daniel Hervey had ever been. But he didn't have very long at all to dwell on that question. </p><p>Four days later, he was on his way back to Spain.</p><p>---</p><p>"John?" says his visitor, who's standing there beside him. He sounds anxious. He <i>looks</i> anxious. He squeezes John's hand and he says, "John, do you know my name?"</p><p>He remembers losing track of Gough over the years, when letters went unanswered as the war went on. He remembers that he kept in touch with Will, at least until his wife had died, and he'd found him his job with the River Police. And he remembers Daniel Hervey, who he didn't see again for almost seventeen years. It had taken almost half that long to stop imagining he might. </p><p>"Captain Marlott," Hervey said that day, surprised, when they finally stumbled back into one another's lives. "Good God. John."</p><p>"My Lord."</p><p>And they both struggled for a moment to find words to fill the years that had passed since they'd last met. Lord Hervey glanced at his hand and John covered it up. Lord Hervey took a half step closer, faltered, and the two of them stood mute until Jemima came with words of her own. She didn't make it easier, but she did fill up the silence. And once they'd parted, John wondered for a while if he'd imagined him, from the mercury or something worse. </p><p>"I can help you, John," Hervey said, when he went out to the hospice. And perhaps he was impoverished as noblemen went, but Lord Hervey still had that upright air about him. Perhaps he'd decided against surgery, but he still had that interest in care. </p><p>"Will you let me help you?" Hervey asked, and nineteen days seventeen years before came back to him so strongly that he had to sit. He laughed behind his hands until his throat was raw, and then he told him, <i>Yes</i>.</p><p>John took what Hervey gave him. He just didn't understand right then what <i>help</i> and <i>care</i> entailed. He didn't understand that first, he had to die. </p><p>There are twenty sketches on the table, and John understands now why they don't match. In the sketches, that's John Marlott just before the age of thirty-five; today, he's fifty-two, or maybe more if he's lost track of time. In the sketches, he has all the scars that Hervey touched and drew; he has all the part-healed wound of a rifle ball that Hervey pressed his mouth to like he'd have healed it for him if he could. In the sketches, that's the man who slept with an earl and then went back into a bloody war. But the body in the mirror, only parts of it are him. The rest...he doesn't know. </p><p>"Do you know my name?" he asks. And he does. <i>He does</i>.</p><p>"Daniel," he replies, with his ragged voice. It's his and not his, or perhaps that's just the lungs that feed it. "<i>Daniel</i>," he says, a fraction more clearly. And he asks himself if the man he knew was always this broken thing inside, or if something drove him to it - his parents' death, or something else. He asks himself if that last night they spent together, Hervey saw him dying in a Spanish field and told himself, <i>not him</i>. But, most of all, he wonders if the heart that's beating in his chest is the same one that wanted him so long ago. It feels like the same one he more recently betrayed.</p><p>Then Daniel smiles at him, beatifically, as if John Marlott as he stands here now is his life's work made flesh. He smiles at him, like he's the sun and moon and stars, and questions matter very little. Answers matter less, because the same warmth blooms in him now as did back then. </p><p>He doesn't know if he'll forgive him for the things he's done. Not yet, and perhaps not ever. </p><p>But the fact is this: <i>he wants to</i>.</p>
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